In Episode 16 of my Youtube videos, I briefly showed a startup script that added several options to the contextual menu that allowed a frame to fit a given size. But it’s not the only way I’ve modified my user interface, so this episode of “Must-Haves” is dedicated to scripts that make minor modifications to the user interface.

The modifications mentioned in this article use javascripts that are installed into the startup scripts folder. Scripts put into this folder don’t have to be double-clicked from the scripts palette, instead they are run when InDesign starts up. So let’s have a look at what features these scripts add to the user interface.

This is a one-line script that instead of adding functionality, actually takes it away… If you don’t like the startup screen showing up whenever no documents are open, add this script to the startup scripts and you’ll never see it again.

This script adds the functionality of the pathfinder palette to the contextual menu. This is a great timesaver when working with shapes, so rather than having to click off of the object or objects being worked on to perform a command, simply right click to call up the desired command.

This adds an option to the color palette that allows a color to be converted to greyscale based on formulas in the script.

ControlBackgroundExport.jsx

By Marijan Tompa (Tomaxxi)

This script adds a menu item to Adobe InDesign that allows the export PDF option in the background to be enabled or disabled. For whatever reason, I prefer to watch the progress bar of the PDF being created rather than let the task run in the background, so having this option is useful to me.

Unfortunately, this script is no longer available from Tomaxxi’s website, and it’s also not my script to give away. However, this link is an InDesignSecrets.com article where the script was conceived, and similar scripts are available in the comments section of the article.

Adds a place… option to the contextual menu… but with a major difference. Selected frames will have the resulting images imported into the frames either in the order they were selected; or if marqueed at once, then from a left-to-right, top to bottom order. It effectively does away with the placegun and allows images to be placed directly into awaiting frames.

Adds three options towards the bottom of the contextual menu – swap images, swap places, and load image in placecursor. Certainly a go-to script and very handy for swapping images on the same page or spread; or swapping images between frames.

Translated as align the frame, this script adds four options to the bottom of the contextual menu that allows a text frame or graphic frame to resize to the margin size, page size, bleed size or baseline. Images within a graphic frame will resize to fit the frame, but this can be adjusted by editing the script and replacing the words:

FitOptions.CONTENT_TO_FRAME

with

FitOptions.CENTER_CONTENT

Or another preferred option. See this link for the other options that can be chosen.

Lastly:

In a future Must-Haves video, I will demonstrate other user interface modifications that can be made that are installed in other ways.